Effective July 1, 2017 The three nationwide credit reporting companies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – removed civic public records that did not meet stricter standards for accuracy as required by a settlement between the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies and 30 state attorneys general. One concern regarding the action was that credit scores would improve as a result of the removal of the negative information.

According to the report about 4 percent of consumers with civil judgments or tax liens on their credit record in June (only 0.24 percent of consumers overall) experienced a large enough increase in their credit score as the result of the removal of the data to move into a higher credit score band, meaning, for example, that their credit score moved from being subprime to near prime or from near prime to prime.